VideoGameCritic wrote: Fortunately the Switch is their least gimmicky console in a long time. Being able to play it as a portable or full screen doesn't really compromise the gameplay (does it?)

I am going to say being portable is not a gimmick. Its not something new or novel, but a compromise Swiss Army knife idea with the idea (I think) to abandon having separate home consoles and portables with differing operating systems. They can let the market decide if portability is still desired with mobile devices or not. Notice how Nintendo played up '3D' initially for the 3DS, but really has not played up 'And its portable!' for the Switch. This way, if the portability thing doesn't catch on, they can easily spin it as "We always said it was a home console that could be portable, not the other way around."

The problem with the Swiss Army knife idea are things are not ever optimal. The Switch is too expensive for a portable, too large for a portable, and too short a battery life for a portable. Just like people have said the Switch is what the WiiU should have been, I can see a future piece of hardware being called what the Switch should have been - a true portable that is smaller, cheaper and has a longer battery life - with a docking station to cool off the board, boost the GPU and play on your television set.

I think the point of the Switch's portability is to visit other users for a console-version of LAN-gaming instead of the typical break it out at the doctor's office or subway. With most public places (except maybe an airliner) I would stick with an older handheld device over Switch.

Also, I haven't played any 3DS game where the 3D was an essential part of the gameplay. Mario 3D Land uses it for a minor feature - some puzzle rooms that use the 3D to show behind certain blocks - but they can solved without it by jumping around a bit. The 3D basically was a gimmick, and given that the Switch doesn't have any second screen capacity, it looks like Nintendo decided to ditch the dual-screen approach after the Wii U.

Hi everyone, I think we are all skirting around the real issue here. Nintendo is putting out consoles that are lower specs than their competitors. I remember back in the 16-bit days when graphical horsepower was the rallying cry for Nintendo fans. They were right. The SNES was, in most categories, better on paper than the Genesis.

But for the past 3 generations, Nintendo fans are resigned to say that graphical power doesn't matter. "Fun is what counts" etc. I believe that this view is flawed. Imagine playing a new Mario game with the horsepower of the PS4. It would blow people's minds. Switch is having good sales, but Nintendo was in a position to knock a huge blow to PS4; they missed.

I don't care if they have gimmicks; just get good specs. For the record, I own all three systems.

GTS wrote:Hi Everyone, I think we are all skirting around the real issue here. Nintendo is putting out consoles that are lower specs than their competitors. I remember back in the 16 bit days when graphical horsepower was the rallying cry on Nintendo fans. They were right. The SNES was, in most categories, better on paper than the Genesis.

But for the past 3 generations, Nintendo fans are resigned to say that graphical power doesn't matter. "Fun is what counts" etc. I believe that this view is flawed. Imagine playing a new Mario game with the horsepower of the PS4. It would blow people's minds. Switch is having good sales, but Nintendo was in a position to knock a huge blow to PS4; they missed.

I don't care if they have gimmicks; just get good specs. For the record, I own all three systems.

That is SO not the issue. I'm not "resigned" to saying fun is what counts. That IS what counts, especially these days when, let's face it, all consoles look great. I'm so tired of gamers who say that anything less than the maximum available horsepower looks like garbage. You honestly think Super Mario Galaxy would have looked that much better on the PS4 than the Wii U? What could they do on the PS4 that would have "blown peoples minds"? Please be specific. Slightly more detailed shadows? Slightly smoother lines? Who the hell cares! Those things don't matter if the game sucks! Back in the 8 and 16 bit days, when I was young, I could be convinced that a game was good just because it looked as good as the arcades. You'd think that now that the lines between "good" graphics and "bad" graphics have been blurred that people wouldn't give it so much credence, but they do, ONLY when it comes to Nintendo consoles! Have there been great looking, bad games on the PS4? Of course! Shouldn't that tell you something? When I'm sucked into a game by its game play, difficulty, storyline, etc, I couldn't care less about how smooth the already glossy-smooth lines are. This is like the Emperor's New Clothes all over again! It's like car audio amplifiers in the 90's that claimed to be 1000 Watts per Channel, and people would say to me "I want as many Watts as possible so it gets really loud!" and I would immediately fire back "Dude, that sub will hit max volume with 150 Watts, so are you really going to enjoy those remaining 850 Watts (if lightning strikes, by the way)? And still today, people think that graphics, which are essentially like looking through a window when it comes to realism, can make or break the game. You'd think we would have grown out of this by now...

Paul Campbell wrote:That is SO not the issue. I'm not "resigned" to saying fun is what counts. That IS what counts, especially these days when, let's face it, all consoles look great. I'm so tired of gamers who say that anything less than the maximum available horsepower looks like garbage. You honestly think Super Mario Galaxy would have looked that much better on the PS4 than the Wii U? What could they do on the PS4 that would have "blown peoples minds"? Please be specific. Slightly more detailed shadows? Slightly smoother lines? Who the hell cares! Those things don't matter if the game sucks! Back in the 8 and 16 bit days, when I was young, I could be convinced that a game was good just because it looked as good as the arcades. You'd think that now that the lines between "good" graphics and "bad" graphics have been blurred that people wouldn't give it so much credence, but they do, ONLY when it comes to Nintendo consoles! Have there been great looking, bad games on the PS4? Of course! Shouldn't that tell you something? When I'm sucked into a game by its game play, difficulty, storyline, etc, I couldn't care less about how smooth the already glossy-smooth lines are. This is like the Emperor's New Clothes all over again! It's like car audio amplifiers in the 90's that claimed to be 1000 Watts per Channel, and people would say to me "I want as many Watts as possible so it gets really loud!" and I would immediately fire back "Dude, that sub will hit max volume with 150 Watts, so are you really going to enjoy those remaining 850 Watts (if lightning strikes, by the way)? And still today, people think that graphics, which are essentially like looking through a window when it comes to realism, can make or break the game. You'd think we would have grown out of this by now...

You seem to be taking this very personally. Take a deep breath and then try responding again with a bit less hostility.

Sometimes I wonder if we are so confused by Nintendo because they are a Japanese company and have a different mindset than their American customers. I think their desire to innovate is both inspiring and frustrating. For example, I think the mobile possibilities of the Switch are fantastic and truly innovative, but I also wish they'd release a traditional version to be played on the TV only.

Can't have it both ways, so I feel they want their legacy to be that of innovation, even if there are some bumps in the road.

GTS wrote:Hi Everyone, I think we are all skirting around the real issue here. Nintendo is putting out consoles that are lower specs than their competitors. I remember back in the 16 bit days when graphical horsepower was the rallying cry on Nintendo fans. They were right. The SNES was, in most categories, better on paper than the Genesis.

But for the past 3 generations, Nintendo fans are resigned to say that graphical power doesn't matter. "Fun is what counts" etc. I believe that this view is flawed. Imagine playing a new Mario game with the horsepower of the PS4. It would blow people's minds. Switch is having good sales, but Nintendo was in a position to knock a huge blow to PS4; they missed.

I don't care if they have gimmicks; just get good specs. For the record, I own all three systems.

That is SO not the issue. I'm not "resigned" to saying fun is what counts. That IS what counts, especially these days when, let's face it, all consoles look great. I'm so tired of gamers who say that anything less than the maximum available horsepower looks like garbage. You honestly think Super Mario Galaxy would have looked that much better on the PS4 than the Wii U? What could they do on the PS4 that would have "blown peoples minds"? Please be specific. Slightly more detailed shadows? Slightly smoother lines? Who the hell cares! Those things don't matter if the game sucks! Back in the 8 and 16 bit days, when I was young, I could be convinced that a game was good just because it looked as good as the arcades. You'd think that now that the lines between "good" graphics and "bad" graphics have been blurred that people wouldn't give it so much credence, but they do, ONLY when it comes to Nintendo consoles! Have there been great looking, bad games on the PS4? Of course! Shouldn't that tell you something? When I'm sucked into a game by its game play, difficulty, storyline, etc, I couldn't care less about how smooth the already glossy-smooth lines are. This is like the Emperor's New Clothes all over again! It's like car audio amplifiers in the 90's that claimed to be 1000 Watts per Channel, and people would say to me "I want as many Watts as possible so it gets really loud!" and I would immediately fire back "Dude, that sub will hit max volume with 150 Watts, so are you really going to enjoy those remaining 850 Watts (if lightning strikes, by the way)? And still today, people think that graphics, which are essentially like looking through a window when it comes to realism, can make or break the game. You'd think we would have grown out of this by now...

Super Mario Galaxy was on the Wii not the Wii U and just like most Wii games it looked like mud butt. If it had been on the Wii U or the PS4 it would've looked lovely. Graphics matter to a certain point but honestly after the Wii U I think all of the major consoles have excellent graphics. Seriously, Yoshi's Wooly World is one of the most beautiful looking games I've ever played, graphically it rivals anything else I've seen on other consoles. It just sucks that the Wii U struggles to run that game at certain points, it has far too many stutters and frame drops that quite honestly ruin my enjoyment of the game. I don't think it's so much graphics where Nintendo skimps anymore, lately they've really been cutting corners on CPU power and developers are complaining about it. The Wii U's CPU was such an underpowered and archaic piece of trash, it was the biggest complaint developers had about that system. Nintendo refuses to listen to them, or just flat out doesn't care.

If the Switch was $100 cheaper, I might consider it. Too expensive for what you get IMO. Hell, I got a solid "off-brand" tablet from Amazon with similar specs that is comparable in size, and it was less than $100.

I just see it as a WiiU 2.0, much like the Wii was a GameCube 2.0. So far, I havent seen a single release (for me personally) that even makes it worth buying this year, and possibly even next. Plus the fact that, with the exception of its initial release, I have never seen them on the shelf. Every single store in my area has a big giant empty display case for Nintendo.

Nintendo's biggest gimmick seems to be invisible product. I cant readily get any of their stuff ever unless I want to pay double or triple the retail price to a 3rd party. No thanks.